


Stolen, Stolen

by GatewayGirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Exhibitionism, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Scars, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-28
Updated: 2007-12-28
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:04:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GatewayGirl/pseuds/GatewayGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Harry is visiting Charlie, he goes looking for a thief. He finds someone he was never supposed to see again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stolen, Stolen

**Author's Note:**

> **Canon-Compliancy:** DH, pre-Epilogue. (Can be read as Epilogue-compliant)
> 
> I wrote this for Florahart, for the Merry Smutmas exchange in 2007. Her request had quite the smorgasbord of elements she would like, from which I chose these: hurt/comfort, conflict, complications, talking (in and not-in sex), urgency, embarrassment, possibility of being caught, sneaking around that's not cheating, muscles, description, sex, getting past/through problems, emotions that are not all just happy, plot, and a waterfall. 
> 
> The title is, in part, a reference to "Song of Fairies Robbing an Orchard" by Leigh Hunt (though derivative, see: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/song-fairies-robbing-orchard).

_  
Stolen, Stolen   
_

  


Harry knew the room he was waiting in well enough. He had practically lived there, after all. How long had he stayed with Charlie? Less than three weeks, maybe, but not by much. 

He had never been abroad before the end of the war, but his robbery of Gringotts was not without consequences. According to some people, he had been remarkably fortunate to escape assassination at goblin hands. As a kinder retribution, the goblins had dumped the contents of his vault -- or rather, vaults, both Potter and Black -- on his doorstep one evening, and then banned him from any bank transactions. Harry, on Bill's advice, had gone to Zurich and negotiated with the Swiss gnomes, who were only too happy to accept his commerce. It had been Harry's first trip out of the country, and somewhat to his surprise, under the circumstances, he had enjoyed it. He had traveled for weeks, eventually ending up in Romania. 

Harry leaned back in the worn but comfortable couch. When he had showed up for the first time, Charlie had made him a bed here. That might have held, but he had ended up sitting on the edge of the couch after Harry had settled in for the night, relating some string of wild sexual escapades that Harry suspected had been intended to shock him. With every story, he had instead become more obsessed with the laughter in Charlie's eyes and the shift of muscles under his skin as he gestured to the bare stone walls. Finally, Harry had grabbed at those enticing forearms, tugged Charlie down, and whispered "teach me." The night had been everything he could have hoped for, and after that, he hadn't slept on the couch. 

Now, he was hoping that Charlie hadn't thought better of that visit -- long as it had been -- in the intervening weeks. He would need to reassure him about Ginny, of course, as soon as he could without being crude about it. Charlie protected his younger siblings -- that Charlie had been willing to accept him at all showed how obviously broken things were between him and Ginny. 

Harry sighed. In retrospect, he couldn't help thinking that it would have been better if he had gone looking for Ginny directly after defeating Voldemort. Instead, he had left her to brood on Fred's death, and his own presence had become inseparably tied to the battle and that loss, somehow. She didn't actually cry when she was with him, the way Cho had, but the grief always came closer to the surface when they were together. The longest that they had been in the same room since had been a Weasley family dinner on his birthday. She had taken over the washing up and left as soon as it was done.

The click of the door latch interrupted Harry from his musings. He stretched out and back in his most casual manner, but Charlie didn't miss a beat.

"'Lo, Harry." 

Harry pouted. He had hoped Charlie would be surprised -- and ideally, pleased -- by his unexpected presence. 

"Someone told you, didn't they?" 

Charlie rolled his eyes. "At least they let you in. And Ahmed didn't tell me _who;_ I guessed."

Harry remembered the approving sweep of the man's eyes when he had agreed to admit Harry to Charlie's quarters. Somehow, he had never registered that particular look before Charlie took him to bed. He had to assume it had been aimed at him before that -- he had seen it often enough since. Would sex with Ginny would have sensitized him in the same way? 

"I've only been here once before."

"Yeah, but you stayed for weeks, and he _approves."_ Charlie smirked, and ruffled Harry's already tousled hair. He leaned over the back of the couch, his breath warm on Harry's ear. "I think he hopes that I'll fall in love and leave him all the village girls." 

Harry tried to mirror the smirk as he looked over his shoulder, but he knew Charlie did it better. "I don't know. From the look he gave me when he let me in, maybe he hopes I'll start wanting more variety." 

Charlie shrugged and stepped away, leaving Harry with the feeling that he had misspoken. 

"How are things at home?" 

Charlie called the question over his shoulder as he headed for the little food storage area that a true optimist might call a kitchen. Harry stood and followed. Shrugging, he leaned in the doorway.

"About the same, last I was there." _Except that Ron and Hermione were being a couple, and I felt more like a third wheel than usual._ "That was a few weeks ago, though. I went to Zurich to make a withdrawal, and ended up traveling to Vienna, and then to Budapest." What should have been a worldly wave of his hand ended up more apologetic. "Flooed the Burrow to pass some money to Ron, then just kept moving."

Ron and Hermione had also been banned from Gringotts, of course. Hermione had arranged for both of them to paid in Muggle funds, which she handled out of Barclays, but when they wanted to change pounds to Galleons, Harry usually saw to it for them. George teased too much, and Percy could never quite manage not to look like they deserved their situation. 

Charlie nodded as he extracted a couple of beers from the cold cupboard. The motion sent traces of ash floating out in the light from the fire, giving him a momentary halo. "You’re the right age for that," he remarked, as he reached for a utensil drawer. "Everyone should travel." 

Harry snorted. "Try telling Ron that." Stepping up behind Charlie, he reached around him, taking the still-unopened bottles with one hand and settling the other on his chest. "Later."

Charlie's broad back was warm against his body, which felt as tight and uncomfortable as if he were about to play a Quidditch match. He rubbed his face against Charlie's sooty shirt and wondered if he dared take it off right now. "Later," he repeated, meaning a host of things that needed to be done. 

"Been alone?"

Harry might have protested or dissembled, but instead, he felt a little of that horribly tension drain away. "Yeah."

Charlie turned and took him into strong and gentle arms. 

"Silly boy." 

"Missed you." 

Then they were kissing. It wasn't like being in love, Harry thought, but it wasn't a purely physical thing, either. His heart may not have soared, but it warmed in concert with the heat pooling in his groin. He wasn't sure which of them had pulled the other closer, but the way he rocked forward into the contact was nothing he could control. 

"Hot," Charlie whispered. "You worry about later. I have ideas about _now."_

Charlie's ideas were usually good ones. 

  


It was quite some time later, with stops at the back of the couch and the entrance to the bedroom, that they lay in Charlie's bed, exhausted and sated. Harry wondered if he really should like that Charlie was larger than him. He felt protected in his arms, and surely that wasn't what he should want in a lover. And he couldn't provide this, could he, even to a girl? He had his own power, but in quickness and will far more than in strength. Sighing, Harry lifted his head. 

"I did miss you," he said, almost defensively. 

Charlie let out a huff of laughter. "Did I argue?" 

"No, I suppose not." 

They lay together for another minute in silence. Harry was almost feeling comfortable when Charlie shifted and let go of him to come up on one elbow. His hand returned to Harry's hip, but it wasn't the same. 

"So ... not to be a wet blanket, but I _do_ need to ask."

Harry nodded. He wasn't even going to pretend he didn't know the question -- Charlie's limits had been clear enough from the start. 

"She still avoids me. We've exchanged a few letters -- it's stupid, but we can say more that way. She says she still loves me, but she can't be with me right now." His voice caught, and he turned the strained sound into a small laugh. "When we run into each other, she's always delighted to see me, right up until she can't look at me, which usually takes under a minute."

"Mm." Charlie pushed at a fold in the blanket with one finger. "And do you love her?"

"Yes," Harry answered, but the fear came fast on the heels of his answer. "I think."

"You think?" 

There was a touch of warning there, as there should be. Harry bit his lip. "Well, I'd be sure -- I know how I feel when she's there -- except I'm starting to figure things out about myself." He kept himself from looking up, not wanting to know if Charlie had leered at that. "Not, I mean, men, though I suppose that matters. I mean, about how obsessive I can be once I get a thought into my head. Like Snape, I mean."

"Snape was a nasty, vindictive, unfair bastard."

"Yeah, agreed, but not an _enemy._ But I got that into my head, see? And when I was in second year, I convinced myself that Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin. It's really easy for me to ignore anything that isn't what I've decided it is."

Irritatingly, Charlie looked amused. "And the connection to my little sister?"

"Well, what if I just _think_ I love her, because that's what I decided? I mean, I feel really, _really_ certain, but I've felt certain about things before." 

Charlie laughed. "It's a good thing, then, that she doesn't want you at the moment. You get this settled before you go back to her, got it? And yeah, I do think you'll go back to her." 

"Over it how? Collecting men across Europe?" 

Charlie's eyebrows came up. "If you want. I thought you'd been alone."

"Oh, I have been. I'm not any good at meeting people." 

"It takes practice." Charlie gave him one of those almost brotherly looks. "Even if sex _isn't_ involved."

"Right. I get that, believe me." 

"What's Ginny doing? Not just pining, is she?"

Harry shrugged and rolled onto his back. The ceiling was faintly gold. "No. Back to seeing Dean, as far as I can tell."

"Really?"

"Well, they looked pretty well _together,_ when I ran into them in Diagon Alley." It had been difficult to say which of the three of them was more embarrassed by the experience. 

"She may need someone else to get her past this," Charlie said gently. "She-- Of all of us bar George, she was the closest to Fred." 

"And she was at Hogwarts not long before the battle," Harry added, agreeing. "I can understand why that makes it all harder." _But Dean?_

"That made what you said about Snape harder for her too." 

"Charlie! He probably saved her life! The Carrows would certainly have done her a lot more damage than Snape did." 

Charlie nodded. "I understand that. But how she feels ... look, you know that's different."

"Yeah, I know." Harry tried to rub the tiredness from his face. "So, anyway, we've decided to give it a couple of years. She's going back to Hogwarts when it reopens, and I'm _not_ and after that ... Well, we'll see each other at the Burrow on occasion -- she doesn't want me to stay away from her family -- but it shouldn't be often. We both want to try again, but we're not waiting on it. Not in any sense." It wasn't too different from how things had been the last time he had been here, but it was formal, now. 

"Years." Charlie looked a little taken aback. "How's my mum taking that?"

"Not too badly, surprisingly." Harry could look at Charlie, now. They had got through the dangerous part. "Her logic is about like yours, I think. Hermione told me that that Mrs. Weasley had told Ginny that you couldn't really trust a man until he had experienced freedom."

Charlie laughed, as he was supposed to, at the string of speakers. "Good thing you have informants."

"Yeah." 

Charlie sat up and summoned his trousers. "Let's get dinner, while there still is some," he suggested. Harry tried to look hurt, but Charlie just nudged him cheerily. "We need to keep our strength up for later, you know." 

"Oh, is _that_ what you call it?" 

  


As he got back into the clothes he had so recently been rid of, Harry felt almost content. Charlie was exciting in bed and calming out of it, and didn't seem to mind the idea of Harry sticking around, for now. 

Mrs. Weasley might have a point, he had to admit. Once he was alone and out of Britain, Harry hadn't been _too_ surprised to find himself looking at other girls, but then there were men, and that was a little more disconcerting. If he really needed to explore that idea, he thought that someone who wasn't one of Ginny's brothers would have been better, but he couldn't seem to care enough to figure out how to find one. Charlie was here, and Charlie could be trusted, and he had made it clear that Harry's interest was welcome. 

Harry let his eyes drift over Charlie as the man turned a sleeve of his shirt right-side out. Scattered thin white scars drew the eye across the contours of his muscular arms and chest. Charlie twisted as he raised shirt and arms over his head, offering a glimpse of one broad shoulder before the cloth descended. 

Harry had just opened his mouth to say something when a sharp rap on the door interrupted him. It was just as well, he decided, as he tugged down his own t-shirt. Most of his attempts to compliment people ended up sounding stupid. That was part of why he was here with Charlie, rather than in Madrid with some stranger Ginny would never meet.

"Inga?" 

Charlie had answered the door, opening it to a tired and slightly sooty woman.

"Hey, Charlie," she answered lightly. "Look, I've good news and bad news."

From her tone, it was clear that the bad news wasn't horrible. Harry watched Charlie tip his head and look askance at her. 

"Tell me more." 

"The good news: Zephyra's egg hatched."

"And the bad news is that you didn't get the shell?"

"Got it in one. You're on next."

"Okay." Charlie pulled a cloak from a hook by the door. "Just let me stop by the kitchen for a sandwich. Grab something warm if you're coming, Harry. And your broom, too."

Harry nearly jumped in his hurry to get to his bag and his own traveling cloak. Flying out to a hatching area? There wasn't a chance he'd pass that up!

  


They didn't use the brooms to get there, as Harry had expected. Instead, they rode on a dragon, a steady old Welsh Green, with the brooms hooked to the harness. Riding on a dragon was as thrilling as Harry remembered, and warmer than it had been in June.Unlike a broom, which stayed level on a straight course, the dragon's withers shifted under them with each beat of its powerful wings. Each time the wings lifted, Harry and Charlie would slide closer together, and on each push down, come a little bit apart. It felt like sex. Harry held on to Charlie's waist and wondered if they could do it while flying, or if that would just be suicidal. 

When they were very high among the peaks, the dragon caught a current and the ride became smooth. Harry lay his head against Charlie's shoulder and enjoyed the slow spiral glide as they descended between steep slopes into a narrow valley. He was happily contemplating angles of entry when the slant of the dragon's back suddenly changed, turning his hold on Charlie to more than lustful pleasure, and the dragon landed in an awkward shambling forward gait, its wings flapping jarringly beside them in a forceful braking maneuver. 

The commotion lasted only a few paces, however, and then the dragon stood still, letting Harry get a look at where they had landed. 

They were about two thirds of the way up one of the slopes, at the top of a fall so steep that it was almost a cliff. Golden light colored the rocks behind a familiar looking wooden platform in front of them. He hadn't seen this one before, but the style was used at survey points throughout the preserve. The smooth boards formed an area about twice the size of Charlie's bed, and Harry was sure that the structure was fireproofed, charmed to look to Muggles like unstable fall of scree, and protected from above by a rain-repelling charm. It would be a comfortable place to wait, if their job was to observe. Harry wasn't clear on that bit. The woman had said that the egg had already hatched.

He slid off the dragon's back -- _handler always goes last,_ Charlie had told him -- and looked down at the valley. There was a dragon below them -- a beautiful Antipodean Opaleye, one of the preserve's imports -- with a little grey thing beside it that might be a dragon hatchling curled up and sleeping. A few spots around them glimmered. 

"See those bright spots on the ground?" 

Charlie was beside him, now, just settling a hand on his shoulder. With his other arm, he held their brooms. The unladen dragon reared up and began to clean its wings. "Those are the pieces of egg shell. The egg is camouflaged on the outside, but the inside shines like a moon pearl." He brushed his face past Harry's hair, so close that his stubble tickled at the strands. "Some people even buy it for jewelry, but it has more worth as a potions ingredient."

"Really? What's it good for?" 

Charlie shrugged. "Potions to evaluate veracity -- not of what someone says, you know, but of gems and metals. Bravery draughts. Restoratives for after certain wounds and injuries. For that, the fresher the better, which is why we lose sleep over this. We can buy a lot of supplies with that egg shell, _if_ we can get it tonight." He gave Harry a friendly nudge. "But we can't get it until they move away, and that won't be until the baby wakes. Let's make ourselves comfortable." 

With that, he bounded up onto the low platform, and Harry, grinning, followed him. 

Charlie stopped in the center of the platform and turned slowly. "Not many people out flying at this hour. Ahmed might pass over here, coming back from the western range." He swept a long, obvious look across the sky before returning his attention to Harry. "Feeling bold?" 

"Of course." Harry had an idea where this was going, and really, he was feeling frightened, excited, and embarrassed in advance, but he was bold enough to ignore that.

"Oh, good." Charlie smiled, making the corners of his eyes crinkle in just that way that Harry had discovered that he was unable to resist. "Because I want to see you naked under the wide sky."

Harry caught his breath. "What about you?"

"Oh, you don't think I won’t join you, do you?" Wickedly, Charlie slid one hand along his own abdomen, fingertips sliding under the edge of his shirt. Harry wet his lips. When Charlie turned his hand and curled his fingers over to lift at the hem, Harry followed suit, pulling his worn t-shirt up and off. When the cloth cleared his face, he saw Charlie just starting to lift his own. He did it far more slowly, showing off his body in every position from his hands at his sides to his arms raised above his head, fabric stretched taut between them. 

"God," Harry muttered.

"Hm?" Charlie looked momentarily confused, and Harry grinned. 

"You're sexy, that's all." 

"Ha! So's half of everyone, really."

Smiling, Harry shook his head. Charlie was damn impressive, whether he knew it or not. Harry could learn to take his shirt off like that, but there was no way his body would ever look like Charlie's when he did it, not if he lifted weights for a hundred years. 

He knew, however, that Charlie liked looking at him, so he took a little more care with his jeans, unzipping his jeans slowly and stroking his hands down his legs as he pushed them off. Charlie distracted him from how exposed he felt by removing his own even more nicely -- although, considering how tight his dragonshide work trousers were, that might have been necessity -- and then lying down on his side, stretched out like a model in a slightly dirty magazine. He smiled at Harry as he lazily stroked more firmness into his half-erect cock. 

"Getting any ideas about what we could do?" 

Harry did his best to look innocent. "Wank? We don't have any pictures though." 

"I'll just have to look at you." 

Harry laughed. He knew what he wanted. He lay down by Charlie, his head at Charlie's chest and began to touch him, first with his fingertips, then with his lips, and then with his tongue. He moved down, licking up along the curve of one abdominal muscle and down the next one, until his tongue skimmed the tip of a hard cock in passing. 

"Such a hot lover, Harry," Charlie murmured. "Such a ready mouth. I want that mouth all around my cockhead, and your tongue working all over it."

Harry hurried to suit his actions to the words, moaning around the fullness in his mouth as Charlie continued to tell him how good he was. Charlie's hands were busy as he spoke, touching Harry's hair, shoulders, and cheeks as he such. 

"Yeah!" Charlie arched under him. "Can't reach enough of your beautiful body. Swing around so I can suck your cock, love. You always taste so good, always feel so good in my mouth."

Harry thought it would be almost a pity to block the flow of words, but at the first swipe of Charlie's tongue, he forgot all about that. For a while, he lost himself in wet heat and the smooth brush of skin against the roof of his mouth, and the noises Charlie made, and the noises he made himself and noticed when he had made them. Soft breezes brushed across them and occasionally, with a spike of panic and arousal, he would recall that they were naked on a hillside, exposed to the view any wizard or witch flying over. 

Slow pleasure built to something more frantic. He was struggling for breath, struggling not to thrust, when a shadow fell across them. Harry felt his balls tighten even as he opened his eyes in panic. It wasn't an enemy, or even one of Charlie's coworkers. The Welsh Green was passing over them, harness lines trailing, probably just after a goat. Charlie grabbed around the base of Harry's cock, pumping it as he lifted his mouth. 

"So good, Harry, I need to come, come now, fill you up..." 

Harry beat him to it. 

  


He was drifting in comfortable lassitude when Charlie tensed. 

"Shit." 

"Huh?"

"We missed them leaving. Come on -- we'll need to be fast." 

Rolling to the side, Charlie grabbed his broom on the way to gaining his feet. He threw a leg over it, the polished shaft pushing up his balls and leaving his still half-swollen cock dangling to one side. "I'll get the three to the left; you grab the other two." With that, he shot off into the air, his pale skin gleaming in the fading light. 

Personally, Harry would have preferred clothing -- Charlie looked hot, but he couldn't help thinking this would be uncomfortable, not to mention damn embarrassing if anyone saw. Still, if Charlie thought it was that important, he wasn't going to delay. Grimly, he mounted his own broom and found that the cushioning charms were sufficient. He told himself that he would avoid sharp ascents, and he headed down to the valley floor. 

The mild day had turned to a cooler night, and the moving air was cold on Harry's bare skin, but he didn't have time for a warming charm. They had no idea when the dragons had left, and they needed to be out of sight by their return. Descending was not the danger to his private bits that rising or stopping would be, so Harry dove fast for the first half of the distance and then gradually slowed. 

It was darker in the shadow of the mountains, but the interior white of the shell fragments still gleamed. The Collection charm that Charlie had shown him earlier wasn't exactly like grabbing the Snitch with his bare hands, but Charlie had explained that the less the fragments were touched, the better. He still managed to get both in easy swoops, and he started back up. At a cheerful shout of "Can't catch me!" from Charlie, he completely forget about flying carefully, and lay chest to wood in pursuit. He was too far behind, but he did close some distance, and all told, there were worse things than remaining behind Charlie's perfect arse. He landed on the platform feeling elated. 

"Cheat," he said cheerily. "You had a head start." 

"Only because someone was slow off the platform!" 

"I've never flown starkers before!"

"Well, why not?" Charlie's eyes raked him down and up. "It's a good look on you. I'd keep you here for more if we didn't have this shell to get back." That said, he waved his wand over the heavy, stone-like pieces, and they floated into place. They had missed a fragment, Harry saw, leaving the smooth orb incomplete. Charlie sighed, touched his wand to the shell, and turned to cast a spell into the valley. It wasn't until nothing happened that he frowned. 

"Merlin's sac! It's _got_ to be there." He repeated the incantation, changing the angle of his wand with each casting, and growing more agitated after each. Harry stepped close. 

"Trouble?" 

"The missing piece should glow from the spell. That's maybe a sixth of it -- worth a lot!" 

"Well, should we fly back down and search?"

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck and sighed again. "No. It's not there. It may have stuck to the hatchling, in which case we'll find it at some point. If not, we have a poacher, and it may be my fault for not watching more closely."

"Or it may have been gone before we got here." 

After a few silent seconds, Charlie nodded stiffly. "Yeah. Maybe. For right now, let's get the rest of the shell back to Antonin, so he can get it to our broker this evening." 

The flight back was full of less pleasant thoughts. As they passed over a fold in the hill, Harry thought he saw a gleam below, but before he could remark on it, the dragon let out a flame-filled roar, making words impossible. When the sound died and they were through the warm zone, they were over the next ridge. They flew on. 

  


When Charlie left the next morning for a scheduled patrol along the perimeter of the sectioned non-native territories, Harry decided to investigate on his own. Rather than lounging around after breakfast, he dressed quickly and started out on his broom, heading for the place where he had seen the momentary gleam. 

Flying on a dragon was thrilling, but Harry knew how to _use_ a broom. He hovered over the rough land, invoking his Seeker's skill to take in everything in his extended field of vision. There were no other flashes. He flew in the seemingly lazy loops of a hunting hawk, opening himself up more. _Not the Snitch. Not a gleam. Some little thing that does not belong._

The white tendril was faint and small; it could have been mist. If it had been pointed out to Harry, he might have been able to say that a dry slope was the wrong place for that, but he didn't get to that point. His eye saw it as an anomaly without thought, and he descended. He had to get quite close for scent to reveal it as wood smoke -- the person tending the fire was either highly skilled in Muggle means of dampening the smoke or not quite competent in the relevant charms. 

Harry drifted closer, alert for any sign of attack. Ahead of and below him, the rock seemed to overhang the slope -- perhaps in the entrance to a cave -- and the smoke trailed from underneath it. Harry continued to approach from uphill. This kept him from seeing into the space, but it also kept anyone inside it from seeing him. With a little luck, he would have the element of surprise. 

_Which I'm going to need if it's a poacher who's willing to risk a dragon,_ he told himself. Possibly he should have waited for Charlie or asked someone else to come along. It would have been sensible. If Ron or Hermione had been around, he might have been willing to take them, but no matter what good company Charlie might be, he wasn't that sort of established confidante, and Harry wouldn't give this to a stranger. It was a chance to _do_ something. Already he felt like he was resting on his laurels for a victory that had actually been a mess. He didn't want to get anyone killed, this time. 

_It's a present for Charlie,_ he told himself. _And for the preserve, for letting me stay here for no reason. I'll bring them a poacher._

Of course, he didn't _know_ it was the poacher. It could just be a traveler -- one with enough latent magic to get through the Muggle-repelling charms. He felt like it was more, though. His body was taut with excitement when he reached the edge. He slowed to draw his wand, and then -- in a single, quick motion -- dropped down and spun around, a battle hex ready on his tongue. 

The world seemed to segment into individual pictures. The sky, the side of the hill, the space under the rock, with a spilled cauldron beside a fire. Severus Snape -- a man who looked like Severus Snape -- convulsing and gasping out a mundane curse. His planned attack vanished, replaced by the first thing that came into his head.

_"Expelliarmus!"_

By reflex, Harry caught the flying wand as he landed. The fake Snape had fallen backwards, and was now struggling to regain his feet. It was a good likeness, even down to the black wool robes, but his sallow face was too thin, and he trembled as he clawed at the rock for some projection pronounced enough to give him a handhold. 

"You _bastard,"_ Harry spat. "How dare you?"

"Potter." The name came out in a weak gasp. "All I need to make my day complete. You and your little self-righteous--" 

"Don't even try," Harry said murderously. He thrust his wandtip under the chin of the man, who stopped struggling to rise, but continued to tremble. "I saw Severus Snape die. _You_ are _nothing_ to me -- nothing but a _lie._ " 

The ersatz Snape's face tightened. "Potter," he said hoarsely. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" 

Eyes narrowing, Harry stared at him. "So you were in my class," he said flatly. "Some Slytherin fugitive who has so little respect for your old head of house as to ape him so I'll let you off." 

"Dear God, Potter!" In his agitation, the man spoke at a normal volume. "For once in your life, can't you accept that the simplest --" The words had shot out on the force of anger, but now they ended in a fit of coughing. The man doubled up, wheezing more and more weakly. Harry, to his disgust, found himself dropping down beside him and helping to support him through the spasms. The body under his arm was thin, but hard with tension.

"Simpler? That you're a man I saw die isn't really _simpler,_ now, is it? How could he come back when--" 

_"What_ would I get if I added...." 

He was coughing again, but Harry's eyes widened. "Oh." 

Snape -- perhaps it _was_ Snape -- swallowed hard. He looked like he might have tried to roll his eyes, but they kept blinking shut. "'Oh,'" he mimicked. "Yes. Did you think I went to the Dark Lord unprepared?"

"But Nagini --" 

"Has fairly weak venom -- dilution from her enhanced size -- as Arthur Weasley can attest. And the Living Death ... it slows the action of it yet further. However, it lasts -- the batch I brewed lasted over a month." 

"We didn't find a body."

"Of course not." The man was calmer, now that he was elaborating on his cleverness. For just a moment, he looked like the professor Harry remembered, eyes flashing and face alight with harsh pride. Then the tremors hit again, and he had to stop speaking while his body twitched. One hand hit a rock. His face was the worst, as it lost all semblance of sanity in the distortion of expression. 

"I ..." The word was experimental. Snape took another breath. "If I let you bury me, I would be ... be dead. Quickly. When I released the potion, I activated a portkey -- one timed to operate in ten minutes."

Harry stood. "So your apparently dead body went somewhere else, and stayed there until the Draught of Living Death wore off."

"Yes, obviously. But a month of the venom..." He twitched again, just once this time, and Harry thought he understood. 

"Even slowed, it harmed you. So even if you had an antidote stowed away...." 

"I did, but yes. By now, I have damage that the antidote can't cure." 

"Hm." Leaning back against the rock, Harry crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, it might be true--"

"Might? _Might?_ "

"But I'm still going to wait out the hour."

"This is absurd! Why would anyone pretend to be _me?_ "

"War hero? Someone Charlie and I would tend to trust? Why _not?"_

Snape's face went through such a muddle of expressions that Harry briefly thought that he was having another fit. 

"Hero?" he spluttered. "Trust? You have _never_ trusted me." 

Harry shrugged. "You're always unpleasant, usually unfair, and frequently suspicious in your behavior. I don't think you can blame me for that one. You came through, though, and I know it." 

Snape took several long breaths. A few tremors came and went. Harry was wondering if he should go and help him again, when he looked up, eyes clear. 

_"Legilimens!"_

  


_Harry was in the Shrieking Shack, touching the bloody floor, ordering a funeral. He was in the Ministry, shouting, demanding a medal -- Order of Merlin, First Class, for Severus Snape's empty coffin. They argued him down to Second Class, but there it was, draped across the bare wood._

  


Harry managed to wrench himself straight past the damn eulogy, but only by diving past into memories of the reception afterwards.

  


_McGonagall touched his arm in comfort and support. Ron said it all worked out -- Snape got his medal, and they were rid of him -- and Harry punched him, setting off a fistfight that made the front page of the next morning's Prophet and garnered both of them Howlers from Molly._

  


At that last memory, Snape let up. He felt like he was withdrawing, and Harry was just relaxing when the attack resumed in a new direction. 

  


_A flash of skin. Harry licked up along the curve of one abdominal muscle and down the next one, until his tongue skimmed the tip of a hard cock ... salt ... Charlie's face ... Charlie..._

_  
_

Furious, he wrenched himself free. A look at Snape's face showed him that his attacker's surprise had probably helped him. The man, however, recovered quickly. 

"Not the Weasley that I had expected. Does _Miss_ Weasley know?"

"You can't wait an hour without being a bastard? You're looking more real all the time."

"That would be a 'no,' then."

"It's NOT YOUR BUSINESS!" Harry winced at the echo of his shriek. "Damn. Not hers either; we're not together." He crouched down and gripped Snape's arm. To his surprise, Snape, as weak as he seemed, managed to twist it free. 

"Don't TOUCH me!"

"Ass. I have to if I'm going to apparate you out of here. They're looking for you, you know, because of the shell. You need better cover, and I know the place." Harry reached out to take hold again, and this time Snape tolerated it. "Sorry about yelling," Harry added apologetically, and he apparated them away. 

  


The cave was a place that Charlie had taken him for sex, once. Harry tried not to think of that as he caught Snape, who had collapsed from the strain. Snape grabbed his shirt in two fistfuls and mouthed something desperate. 

"WHAT?" Harry shouted to be heard over the falling water, but immediately realized that Snape didn't have the strength to be that loud. Quickly, he cast a muting charm between them and the waterfall. "Sorry. What?"

"My cauldron --"

"I'll go get it."

It was the work of a moment to apparate back to the sheltered spot and grab that and the only other unnatural item in sight -- a single knapsack -- and then apparate back. He placed both on the sandy floor of the cave. 

"There." Smiling wryly, he ran a finger along the top of the little travel cauldron. "You're trying to brew a restorative, aren't you? That's why you needed the shell."

"It's no good," Snape said. "All that shell -- nearly gone, and nothing to show for it. Can't _stir...._ " As if to demonstrate, his body twitched once, violently, and Harry remembered the cauldron lying on its side, already spilled when he arrived. 

"I can help." 

A momentary look of hope was wiped from Snape's face by a sneer. "I recall your aptitude at Potions, Potter."

"Not so bad when I was getting encouraged instead of put down, was it?" Harry shot back. 

"With _my_ assistance."

"Which I'd have now, right? I'm not claiming to know how to make anything. You tell me what to do, and I'll be your body, that's all."

Snape's only reply was a desperately quick nod. Turning away, he looked about at his surrounding. The light, filtered as it was through lines of water, was dim, but their eyes had adjusted by now. Harry suspected that Snape could see the curved path of the rock wall better than he could. 

"What is this place?" 

"A cave behind a waterfall. Charlie _does_ know about it, but it's on the far side of the residences from the place where you took the egg. I don't think he'll look here." 

"You said he would trust me." 

"I said he might -- certainly someone might believe that he would. His loyalty to the preserve could win out, though. I think you better stay my secret." 

"I haven't harmed the preserve."

"You stole some egg shell. People noticed. They sell those for income, you know." 

"I NEEDED it! The damage--" He lapsed into coughing again, and Harry caught him around the waist and held him. With a precise wave that Professor McGonagall would have been proud off, he transfigured one of the larger rocks into a low chair. 

"I know," he said reassuringly as he helped Snape up into it. "I know." He laughed. "Can't yell, huh? That's got to be rough." 

"Imbecile. Arrogant, ignorant ...."

"Don't know that it would be much easier for me." _It definitely wouldn't have been a few months ago._

As Snape had begun to twitch again, one arm jerking with the motion, Harry caught at shoulder and wrist. With the fingers of his upper hand, he pushed slowly into a muscle that was spasming. "Shh. Don't think about me for a bit. It's making this worse, I think."

"How can I NOT THINK about someone who's HOLDING --" 

"Hush. See? I've learned a few things staying with Charlie--"

"So I saw," Snape sneered. 

"Some of them don't even involve sex," Harry replied, as if the comment didn't bother him. After all, why should it? So Snape knew he was good enough for a hot, attractive, experienced, easily distracted man. "The dragon handlers do a lot of quite serious massage." He smiled slightly. "They get a lot of muscle strain, if you can imagine that." 

Snape held himself immobile as Harry eased more fully behind him. The muscles from shoulder to neck felt like stiff rope. Harry stroked down them, pressing gently and testing what Snape could take. 

"I am not accustomed--"

"Shh. You need this. It's not good to never be touched, you know."

"I've managed for years, Potter," Snape said, with what shreds of dignity he could muster through his shaking voice. 

"So did I, but it's still not good." 

"The fabric scratches. I'll end up with burns."

"Take it off then," Harry retorted, feeling satisfyingly bold. "Or don't you have anything on under that?"

"That is none of your business!"

Harry shrugged. "Just push it off the shoulders, then." 

Perhaps Snape really didn't have anything under the robes, Harry reflected, as the man awkwardly undid the upper layers and pushed them down so that his arms were bare down to the elbows, and his body almost to the waist. Belatedly, he recalled Snape's memory of his father. He certainly hadn't had trousers as a boy. 

Snape's body was thin, wiry, and scarred -- not with the faint, promptly healed scars that Charlie had, but with the dark, raised tissue left by wounds that healed without charms. After testing the shoulder muscles again, Harry began a series of rapid, light strikes with the edge of his hand.

"What is that?"

"It just loosens it up a little." 

"Like a steak that needs tenderizing?" Snape sneered. 

"Actually, yeah. Like that." Harry stroked down, testing. The striking had helped. After working the shoulders for a moment, he decided to give them time to recover from the manipulations and he moved to the cords of muscle along the spine. Snape's shoulder blades poked out like wing stubs as he hunched forward. Across them, Harry saw several old straight scars, as if from blows of a whip. Remembering his brief forays into Snape's past, years ago, he revised that to 'belt.' Gently, he traced along one before returning to stroking upwards. 

Slowly, he worked his out from the spine. He left thumb moved over a ropey mass of scar tissue, much thicker and messier than the straight lines -- a stab wound, he thought -- and he paused to stroke out along it. 

"Do you like that?" Snape asked nastily. "Have some sort of fetish for scars? Perhaps you could try Lupin." 

Harry's hands clenched, fingernails digging into the skin he had just been exploring. "Shut it." 

"Oh, was that a little too close? Or did he turn you down? He always --" 

Harry shoved the man away, and Snape tottered on the edge of the chair for a moment before landing on the sandy floor. Harry didn't move to help him up this time. 

"Remus is dead," he said flatly. 

Snape stared up at him, his surprise obvious. "Dead?"

"He died in the last battle, so you can stop going on about it. There's no point in putting him down, now. You _won,_ Snape. They're all gone." 

"I..." Snape eased forward cautiously, reaching a hand out to the chair seat to steady himself. "I didn't know." 

"So I'll let you live." Harry shifted uneasily at his own harsh tone. "I should get back. I'll bring you food, later. Is there anything else you need?"

Snape swallowed visibly and pulled himself up to his knees. "Tinder. Glacial water. Gum Arabic. Mugwort. Powdered unicorn horn, if you can get such a thing. A blanket. A toothbrush, if personal trivialities are on offer." 

Harry nodded. "I won't have it all tonight, but yeah, I can get those, I expect."

He turned to go, but Snape's voice stopped him. 

"The werewo-- _Lupin_ was not my enemy."

Harry fixed him with a hard stare, which Snape met with a practiced, empty gaze. 

"Could have fooled me." 

He apparated back to Charlie. 

  


Charlie wasn't there, of course. He had left a note saying that he was off to hunt for the poacher, and would be back at dinner if he didn't meet with success. Harry took the time to apparate into town and get supplies, which he hid in his travel pack, under his cloak. Included in the stores was a general tonic from the apothecary, although he had no idea if it would help. As Charlie still hadn't returned, Harry went to the preserve library and took away a book on dragon products in potions. He was reading about the uses of dragon's egg shell when Charlie finally returned. 

"Hello! Sorry I'm so late. I stopped at the dining hall, but you weren't there, so I brought us both food." 

The meal was one Harry had had before. It was made from pork and turnip, which sounded awful and looked bland, but was surprisingly tasty and filling. His mouth watered when he smelled it, and he realized that he had never had lunch. 

"Thanks!" Harry reached out for the bowl and fork. "I was just looking at what someone might want with shell."

Charlie nodded and set down his own bowl on his knee. "Right. That's why I was out, actually. Looking for the bastard." 

"Any luck?" 

Charlie shook his head. "Not much. I mean, I'm pretty sure I found where he had been, but there was no trace leading out. He had to have apparated or used a portkey."

"Where he had been?" Harry asked, as if curious. 

"Ah. When we were coming back last night, and Esmeralda flamed, I thought I saw something there. I went back with Obsidian, a Hebridean Black -- they're the only dragons that scent track, you know -- and I found his shelter. Fire ash and everything. It had been deserted, though. He was probably only there to watch for the hatchling to leave, like we were."

"Are you sure it was a man?"

"What?" Charlie looked puzzled for a moment, but then nodded. "Yeah. Feet nearly as big as mine -- I tested one of the prints in the sand." He grinned. "Lousy tread on his shoes, too." 

Harry thought he was probably lucky that Charlie hadn't looked at _all_ the footprints, and made up his mind to apparate back to the area that night and sweep it with a wind spell. Thoughtfully, he finished his meal, ending just as Charlie was setting his own bowl aside and summoning beer from the kitchen. 

"Is it later yet?" Charlie teased. 

"For the moment." 

"Mm." Charlie took a swallow of his beer and then reached out to take Harry's hand. His own was large and calloused and warm. "So, how was your day? I heard you weren't around here, much." 

Harry shrugged. "Apparated to town." 

"Oh?" Charlie raised his eyebrows, but when Harry didn't come forward with any details, shrugged. "Well, good then. You shouldn't sit around waiting for me." 

Harry had turned over Charlie's hand, and now traced the memento of a probably life-threatening claw scratch diagonally over the wrist. "Do you think I have a scar fetish?" 

He was almost as startled by the words as Charlie. Charlie, however, took only a few seconds to shrug. "Do you?" 

"I don't think so. But someone said...." Harry felt his face heat, but Charlie gave him an easy grin. 

"Oh, I see! Well, I'd say it's nothing so sexual as that. A fascination, maybe. You notice scars more than most people, and they don't put you off." Charlie's smile became more suggestive. "But that gives me an idea...."

"Oh?"

"Mm. What if we try that? You touching every scar on my body -- you have to find them _all,_ realize. Fetish or not, it should be hot."

Harry laughed, the sound coming out shaky and low. "And what will you be doing? Lying there?"

"As you wish." Charlie sucked on his lip for a second. "Mm. What if you blindfold me? Then I won't know where you'll touch next." 

"You come up with the best plans." 

"I try." Never one to waste time, Charlie stood up and peeled his shirt off. He turned his back to Harry before unzipping and lowering his trousers -- not, Harry suspected, to hide his genitals, but rather to show off the tight, smooth curves of his arse cheeks. Harry licked his lips, and Charlie looked over his shoulder. "Here?" he asked. "Or in bed?" 

Harry considered. The bed would be more comfortable if he took his time, but Charlie standing here naked was sexy. "In the bedroom," he decided. "Not lying down, yet, but you can hold on to the bedposts." 

"Mm," Charlie answered. "Brilliant." 

He led the way in there and positioned himself at the foot of the bed, setting his feet wide and taking one bedpost in each hand. 

"Do you like this?" he asked. "Like me spread out for you and waiting? I'm getting hard already, just thinking of how you'll touch me. Wondering if I remember every place you'll need to touch me."

"Yeah, I like it," Harry said shakily. "You need that blindfold though." 

"You know where they are." 

Harry did. He opened the drawer, passing over the fierce-looking dragonhide blindfold, with its stylized beak, and the comparatively delicate red silk one, and pulled out a black velvet blindfold that was trimmed about the inner edges with soft, thick fur. That addition, he recalled, was very effective at blocking stray light. 

Charlie made an altogether too sexy pleased noise when he put it on. 

  


The scars on Charlie's body were mostly ones that had been professionally healed, and the exceptions were old injuries, healed by Molly. They were subtle. Harry started at the top of his head, where a thin, one-inch strip of Charlie's skull was distinguishable by a lack of hair. He knew this scar. Charlie had told him how a childhood attempt to play tag on brooms had caused him to scrape along the bough of a tree. He had been upset that he had broken off a small branch of unripened apples. His mother had screamed and rushed him to St. Mungo's. 

Harry ran a fingertip over the line, first. The skin was soft. He wanted to touch it with his tongue, but Charlie was too much taller than he was. Later, he decided. 

The back of Charlie's neck was next. This one was from a dragon's tail that almost missed. An inch further over and Harry thought Charlie would have been paralyzed ... unless there was some sort of magic for that kind of injury. This spot was wonderful for two reasons -- one, the noises that Charlie made when he licked along it; and two, the way it let him feel the strong lines of Charlie's neck as he crossed them. 

He had known about the burn mark on Charlie's left shoulder, but had never before noticed the faint thread of white on his forearm. "What?" he asked, and Charlie told him it was from breaking a glass when he was being stupid. Harry traced a fingernail down it and moved on. 

When he was finished with what he could reach from behind, Charlie twisted slightly in place, as if expecting to be told to turn, but Harry set a hand on his back. "Stay," he say. Because he could, he slid the hand down and over Charlie's arse before lifting it away, but he had other things to do. He got up on the bed, which made him considerably higher than the other man. He had to bend down to rub the tip of his tongue over the scar he had started with. 

"Harry." Charlie tipped forward, bumping his head into Harry's still-covered crotch. "Let me suck you." 

Harry's breath caught at the thought, but he shook his head and gathered his resolve. "Not done." 

"You can stop anytime."

"Don't want to." Still, he did pause to get undressed, and to have Charlie turn. While he explored the line across Charlie's chest, trailing his tongue through curly red hair and over the salty skin beneath, his cock bobbed and brushed against Charlie's thighs. 

"Want you," Charlie said, as his tongue traced a mark that curved around Charlie's thigh, and Harry slowed almost to a standstill, wondering if Charlie was going to ask him to take that on to his cock. "You should finish," Charlie said.

"Yeah?" Harry asked nervously. 

"Then turn me again and fuck me. You haven't since you got back."

That was true. Harry felt a bit safer letting Charlie fuck him, or sticking to using his mouth and hands. It wasn't that fucking wasn't one of the most brilliant things he had ever experienced, it was that he felt too ignorant. He always had to rely on Charlie to tell him if the angle was right, or when to go harder. Charlie seemed to just _know_ these things. 

"'Kay," he said, and when Charlie sighed, added. "I'd like that. Really."

Charlie laughed. "Tell me I'm a brilliant fuck, Harry. Come on. Say it."

"You are such a brilliant fuck." 

"All right then. Are you done with my scars? Only one you've missed, I think -- the bottom of my right foot." 

The remark reminded Harry of what had started this. He left Charlie's blindfold on as he went for the lube, so that Charlie wouldn't see him looking upset and draw the wrong conclusions. 

_I really don't need to be thinking about Snape during sex -- Snape with his skinny, awkward body. I wonder if he was bare under that robe? All the way down? I better not think of him stripping off to his cock, or I won't be hard enough to go in._

Oddly, however, his erection did not seem at all deterred by a persistent image of Snape pushing his robe off all the way and displaying a thin cock standing up from black hair. When he was behind Charlie, taking a moment to appreciate the fine path of spine to arse, muscular cheeks rising on either side, he was interrupted by an internal speculation that Snape would have sparse black hair marking the way, to an end not nearly so spectacular to view, but perhaps as hot and tight around him as he pushed inside. 

Harry scowled at the perfect lines of Charlie's back. He did NOT want to see Snape like this. He did NOT want to know what that tight-wrapped muscle would feel like convulsing. He cried out, wordless, and realized he had thrust hard with each denial. 

"That's right, baby, fuck me like that," Charlie urged. "Like to feel how much you need it. Like when you lose all your caution and slam into me -- the way you pull your hard cock out sweet and slow and then come back in fast, with your sac slapping against mine at each push."

That did it. Harry was _there,_ fully. He leaned against Charlie and reached around for his cock, wrapping one hand around it. 

"Yeah. Like that, Harry. So good."

"Yeah," Harry moaned in agreement. "Brilliant." He couldn't say anymore, or even think. His body had acquired a will of its own, and his hips snapped forward in fast rhythm echoed in the strokes of his hand, while feeling inside and outside merged. 

Charlie shouted, and tightened, and that was as much as Harry could take. With a ragged cry, he followed. 

  


They had fallen into the bed, somehow, and were lying side by side atop the covers. Charlie murmured something and rubbed his scratchy jaw along Harry's ear. 

"Huh?"

"You're brilliant, I said." Pulling back enough to look at him, Charlie smiled. "Not as nervous as you used to be." 

"Oh." Harry realized that he hadn't thought at all about angle, or even what he was doing with his hand. "Er ... was it all right?"

"That's included in 'brilliant,' prat." 

"Oh. I suppose." 

Charlie looked thoughtful for a moment. "So, about this man ... the one who said you had a scar fetish?"

Harry twitched. "I ... it wasn't anything. Really." 

Charlie looked skeptical for a moment, but rather than moving to questions, shrugged. "If you say so. Just to be clear, though, I don't object to you seeing as anyone else, even if you're staying with me." 

Harry ran a finger over the coverlet. "Okay." 

"Really. Actually, I think you _should_ see other men -- and women -- if you have any inclination to at all. You need to figure out what you want." 

"I suppose. That won't bother you?"

"No, I ..." Charlie sighed. "The thing that bothers me, sometimes, is feeling that I might be the substitute Weasley." 

"What?" Harry laughed incredulously. "You're _nothing_ like Ginny. Well, hair color and freckles, I suppose, but you keep the hair so short that I can hardly tell."

"Right, but ..." Charlie shrugged slightly. "I'm still a sibling to Ron. You'd still have him as a brother-in-law."

"You can't think I want Ginny for that!" Harry exclaimed. "Even less _you,_ since we couldn't marry." 

"Couldn't we?" said Charlie, raising his eyebrows. "Not in England, perhaps, but ...." He laughed. "Not what I'm looking for, anyway. Don't worry about it, just remember that you're free to come and go." He laughed again. "So to speak." 

They showered and dressed, and had dinner with a boisterous, friendly group of other dragon handlers. Harry enjoyed it, but throughout the evening, his thoughts came back to the conversation. Charlie hadn't really needed to tell him that, especially if he thought Harry was already seeing other men. What he had really wanted Harry to know was that he could talk about it, probably for the best of reasons. Harry imagined that Charlie would want to know enough to protect him. The conversation might actually have been easier if he _had_ been getting intimate with someone, rather than just rubbing the shoulders of someone with nerve damage, and had been able to confide a detail or two. 

  


Harry was apprehensive about going back to Snape the next day. Yes, Snape had been nasty, but he was also in bad shape, and Harry had basically shoved him to the ground and left him there. And in retrospect, he wondered if maybe Snape had been nervous and trying -- ineptly -- to determine whether Harry was attempting to seduce him. If he was that unaccustomed to being touched, it might make sense. 

Worse yet, while Harry _hadn't_ had any interest in seducing him, Charlie's little game had got the thought stuck in his head. The idea of Snape falling apart with _pleasure_ now held a strange fascination. _Oh well. That should go away as soon as I lay eyes on the ugly git. If not then, the first words out of his mouth should do it._

The first didn't help. In fact, Harry decided, as he stood nervously in the narrow, water-splashed entrance to the cave, it seemed less that his memory had improved Snape's looks during the last day, than that antipathy had worsened them when he was younger. Or perhaps it was merely that Snape was not currently angry or sneering. 

In fact, he wasn't all that old, either. As old as Sirius would be, as Harry's dad would be ... Harry did some quick math, and determined that Snape was under forty. Older and far plainer than Harry's current lover, to be certain, but still far younger than he had seemed when Harry was a child, and forty was ancient. Currently, he was sitting on the sand, a thin blanket wrapped around as much of him as it would cover, in the nearest dry spot to the curtain of falling water. He stared out at it, or perhaps at the light beyond. The noise had no doubt kept him from hearing Harry's approach. Harry stepped forward, and Snape jumped with the abrupt movement of a startled rabbit. Wand out, he swayed and then collapsed back to the ground. 

"You can put that away," Harry said. "If I was going to attack you, I would have done it last time." 

"You _did."_

"Oh." Harry hadn't thought of it that way. "Well, sort of, but I didn't know it was you. Look, I brought you things." He shrugged off his bag and showed it in a conciliatory gesture. "Want to see?"

"I don't appear to have anything else to do," Snape snapped, and Harry took that as permission to step closer. 

"Here." He handed Snape the bottle from the front pocket first. "Don't know how good it is, but it's a strengthening tonic."

Snape accepted the bottle, but by the time he was done sniffing suspiciously at the contents, Harry expected him to pour it out on the sand. Instead, the man shrugged, and downed the contents with a grimace. "It will do, I suppose. It is nutrition, if nothing else." 

"Well, there's food, too." 

"Did you bring anything I _asked_ for, Potter?" 

The condescending tone rankled, but Harry could hear the fear behind it. That helped keep him from yelling in reply. 

"Yes, and you could be a bit more gracious -- or at least less rude -- about it. I don't need to spend my time wondering around foreign shops trying to figure out the coinage." 

"Of course. You could spend it licking Weasley's pri--" Snape coughed several times, and for a moment he just worked at breathing, each short breath rattling in and whistling out. Harry leaned against a rock and folded his arms over his chest.

"I--" Another cough, and more breathing. "Thank you for your efforts, Potter." 

The words were said flatly, but Harry decided it was enough. He handed Snape a sandwich, and then opened the main compartment of the bag. "Should I put the brewing things by your cauldron?"

At an odd sound, he glanced over and saw that Snape had his mouth full. "I'll just do that," he went on. "Oh, and I _did_ get unicorn horn." 

He had unpacked the potions supplies and was just drawing out a miniaturized blanket when Snape cleared his throat. 

"What's that, then?"

"Oh -- I couldn't get you a bed, but I found a blanket and sleeping mat at a camping store. The mat's charmed to not let cold through, so it should be warm enough." 

Snape froze. For one strange moment, Harry couldn't decipher his expression. Deliberately, Snape cleared his throat with a slowness that might protect him from the coughing fits. "That was ... good of you." 

Harry, embarrassed, shrugged. "Can't get better if you're using up all your energy not freezing, right? Did you want to start this brewing?"

"Let me finish this sandwich first. I may be steadier with some food in me." 

  


A few minutes later, they had started preparations for the brew. Except for an unusual lack of insults and attacks, Snape sounded almost normal as he detailed how the eggshell should be ground, and a root that he supplied chopped. Soon the first several ingredients were simmering over a magical fire that Harry had conjured. He sat back in one of the sandy areas. Snape was curled into himself like an injured spider, with his arms held tight around his knees. 

"Are you all right?" 

"Of course I'm not all right, Potter! That's --" Snape clamped his jaw shut and curled in more completely. Harry realized that he was trying to keep his body still. 

"Maybe this will help."

"There won't be enough."

"Well, then, why are we _making_ it?" Harry exploded. 

"I-- It may _help."_ Snape amended awkwardly. "It is not enough to be a cure."

"That's different." Harry stopped himself from asking if Snape would like him to rub his back, again. He wasn't digging up that mess. The silence, however, was growing awkward, and he was rather afraid that Snape would fill it by reviving some old resentment. "How did you end up here?" he asked. 

Snape lifted his head, but he didn't look at Harry. Rather, he stared out in the direction of the falling water. "I had ... quite a few portkeys in reserve. Portkeys to locations near members of the Order, and portkeys to other ... acquaintances."

"Including one to Charlie?"

"Exactly. In case I had needed to contact him."

"But you didn't."

"It was not Order business." 

Harry scowled. "You got bit by Voldemort's bloody great snake working for us. Of course it was Order business."

That brought Snape's head slowly round. He really did look horrible, Harry thought, although in dismay rather than revulsion. His cheeks were sunken from strain and lack of food, and the skin under his eyes bruised with lack of sleep.

"I doubt many people would see it that way. Any who did would try to fetch me back to Britain, and then I'd be on the run again, but with pursuers." 

"You don't want to go home?"

"I don't have a home."

Harry had to stop and catch a scornful reply. He couldn't really feel sorry for Snape for that, but there was no reason the man _couldn't_ leave. 

"I don't either," he said finally, "but I want to. I suppose if you don't...." 

For just a moment, Snape looked hungrier than when Harry had first taken out the sandwich. He swallowed before speaking. "I ... I do. But not there. I need to be somewhere else."

The halting words were the largest revelation that Harry had ever heard Snape make while not screaming. 

"Yeah," he agreed, wanting to be generous in return. "It's easier being away. Hell, I had to come to Romania to have sex, right?" 

Snape snorted in an almost familiar manner. "Don't tell me you hadn't." 

"I hadn't." 

Snape glowered disbelievingly at him for a minute, but then let up as Harry failed to laugh. 

"Quite unlike your father," he said with a sniff. 

Harry shrugged. "I gather my Dad was a little more socially confident than I am." 

"If you want to call it that." 

"I don't want to talk about it at all, really. There hardly seems any point." 

Snape began to tremble, again, and Harry found himself moving nearer. When the tremors turned to spasms down Snape's right side, Harry caught at his arm and held it still. Finally the fit ended and Snape slouched limply forward, his breathing shaky. 

"Is there anything I can do for you?" 

"I ... My bag. There's a small blue jar. That and some water?"

"Sure." 

When Harry returned with the requested items, Snape opened the jar, filled the tiny scoop inside with the powder it was sitting in, and dumped the measure into the water. It turned a nasty grey color, but he drank it with no more than a momentary grimace. 

"Want me to get you more? Water, I mean?"

"Yes, I-- Yes." 

When Harry returned, Snape was sitting more upright, but his face had relaxed. 

"What was that?" Harry asked, as he handed over the fresh water. Snape took a grateful swallow of it before replying. 

"Nothing complex. Powdered dragon scale for the most part. The effects are temporary, and it is bad for the heart...." He shrugged. "It has kept me going this long, but I came here in hopes of shell." 

"Ah." Harry wondered if he should look up this usage of dragon scale. 

Snape moved uneasily, and Harry checked his timer spell. They still had twenty minutes until he should return to the potion. 

"Potter?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you-- Would you be willing--" He stopped. 

"What?" Harry asked. He turned to look at Snape. "Might as well say. I mean, this can't get any odder, can it?" 

"Odder than _you_ as a nurse and potions assistant? Voluntarily? Not by much," Snape said dryly. 

"Well, there." Harry had to laugh a little. "What do you want, then?" 

Snape drew himself up with stiff haughtiness. "I was wondering if you might work on my back, again." He slouched slightly. "It did help."

The stiffness, Harry thought might have gone straight to him. "Do you promise not to be rude about it?" he countered. 

His tone was not at all kind, but Snape answered with a rapid nod. "Agreed." 

  


The back rub helped, and the potion that Harry had brewed helped, but neither was a cure. The most efficacious part of the shell, Snape explained, was the internal membrane before drying. Even if he had still had sufficient quantity, the shell was now too old. However, the derived potion was less harmful than the scales, and it controlled the spasms for longer. Harry brought food every day, whenever his absence would be least obvious, and helped with what he could. 

Four days after the brewing, Charlie came back from his shift early, with a strange look on his face, and Harry was afraid he had been caught. 

"Care to tell me what you're up to?"

Harry looked up at Charlie's folded arms and drawn-down brows. "What?" 

"What you're up to. Antonin tells me that you've put down a payment for one quarter of the next shell. That's a lot of money."

Harry shrugged. "I've got it." 

"Yeah, but why the interest? Dragon egg shell? Odd item." Charlie dropped heavily down on the couch. "Look, I know you weren't behind the theft, but it looked that way, and I was damn glad that I could say you hadn't been out of my sight that evening."

Harry tensed. "When I read up on it, I was interested. I think it might help a friend of mine -- someone who was wounded during the war."

"And what did this 'friend' say?"

Bristling, Harry got to his feet. "That yeah, it would, but he couldn't get it fresh enough. I thought maybe I could, all right?"

"That's fine, but--" Charlie stopped. To Harry's distress, he looked almost guilty. "Never mind." Sighing, Charlie reached out and tugged on Harry's arm. "Sit with me?"

The smile that accompanied the request was hard to resist. Harry sat, but he still didn't know what to say. He didn't want to lie any more than he had to. 

"Inga said you were gone, yesterday." 

"I ... I went in to town again."

"Any luck?" Charlie asked suggestively, and Harry found himself smiling involuntarily. 

"Not unless a chocolate ice cream is luck."

"Mm." Charlie pretended to consider. "Not bad, but you could do better."

"Yeah?" 

Charlie bent down kiss him. "Let me show you." 

  


At the end of the week, one of the Romanian Longhorns hatched out two eggs, and Harry found himself with a chunk of rocky shell with a shiny inner coating. He looked awkwardly at Charlie, who grinned and thumped him on the back. 

"Go on. I know it needs to be rushed. See you in a few days?" 

Harry didn't try to correct him. He took off on his broom, swooped quickly in and out of the Apparation barriers, and headed back to Snape.

  


"I have something for you!"

Snape looked up. "More bizarre native pastries?" he asked. 

Triumphantly, Harry raised the bag. "Dragon's egg shell. Less than four hours old." 

All Snape's condescending coolness vanished immediately. He rushed over to set up the brewing area and ended up having another one of his fits. Harry needed to use a quick Summoning charm to save the water from ending up in the sand. 

"Sit down!" he ordered. "I'll make it. You know you can't until I do!" 

Snape choked. "Remember...." 

"I'll just set up. You can tell me if anything's wrong before I start."

  


The first stage of the brewing went quickly. In the lull of the simmer, Harry needed something to do with his hands. He worked on Snape's back, and then on his arms. At one point, when he had paused to look over and check how much time was left, he felt something touching his arm. Looking down, he saw Snape holding his hand there -- just the back of it, and barely touching, but brushing hesitantly over the ends of the hair on Harry's arm. Harry shuddered with sensation, and Snape flinched back. 

"Sorry. I just...." He stopped completely, his face darkening with blood. 

"No, no, I didn't mind," Harry tried to explain, only to met by a superior sneer. "Really. It just felt, well, nice. Oddly nice, really. Here." He mimicked the motion over Snape's arm, and Snape closed his eyes tightly. 

"Sorry," Harry echoed, and went to check the cauldron, although he knew it was early. 

  


When the last ingredient had been added, and the potion had turned to sparkling silver, Harry ladled some neatly into a small cup and brought it over for inspection. His entire body tensed as Snape looked it over, his face taking on the same haughty, pinched expression that it had evaluating potions in class. 

"Is it adequate?" he said, trying to make a joke of his nerves. 

"Hm?" Snape leaned over the cup and wafted the fumes towards his beak-like nose. "Adequate? No." He reached out to catch Harry's wrist before Harry could curse and dump the stuff. "It is perfect." 

Slowly, Harry smiled, and Snape took the cup from out of his hand, blew on it once, and began slowly to sip it. 

"Thank you, sir," he said, almost as a joke. "What should I do with the rest?" 

"Cover the cauldron with an air-block charm and move it to one of the colder areas of the cavern. I'll need at least half of it, but it keeps better in large quantities than decanted."

"You'll need more? I thought it would help right away." 

"It will. However, the damage was done over five weeks; it cannot be cured in five minutes. A one week course should do, I expect."

"Oh." 

"Were you hoping to be rid of me at once?"

"No, I--" The thought of not seeing Snape again was odd. "I hadn't thought about that. Just--" He couldn't explain. "Are you leaving then? You're sure?" 

"Oh yes." Snape finished what was in the cup. "I'll go somewhere where an English expatriate will not arouse much comment, and I'll start over. I'm not too old."

He looked as if he didn't believe himself, so Harry nodded. "Certainly not. Among Muggles, you'd be about the right age for a career change, and wizards live longer." He bit his lip. "I might miss you." 

_"Miss_ me?" 

"A little." 

He thought Snape had almost smiled, but perhaps it was just a tic in his cheek. 

"Well, you may go, Potter. If you decide you must check on me later in the week, I won't object."

"Oh." Harry shifted uneasily. "Uh ... actually, I was hoping I could stay. For the night, and some of tomorrow?"

Snape turned a disbelieving stare on him. "Why ever would you want to stay the night?" 

"Um...." Harry waved a hand towards the entrance. "Well, Charlie thinks I'm bringing this to someone in England. I can't show up now -- not unless I'm on the verge of collapse from Apparation exhaustion."

"Ah." Slowly, Snape nodded. "That makes sense." With a brittle smile, he waved at the dimly lit space. "Please feel free -- my cave is your cave." 

  


They ate from the last store of food that Harry had brought. Most of it was recognizable, but Snape had taken the yogurt and some sort of herb, and something that tasted like onion, and stuffed some wildflowers with it. They were surprisingly tasty. Afterwards, they sat down near the falling water, where the summer light was still slanting past, and stray beams seeping in. 

"It's a pretty good cave," Harry said. Not knowing where to put his hands, he leaned back on them. 

"Yes," Snape agreed thoughtfully. The tremor that came over him was more like a shudder than a seizure, and it passed quickly. He continued as if it hadn't happened. "It's not every cave that has a window." 

"Though it's sort of like one of those bathroom windows that you can't see through." Harry felt an urge to stretch forward and touch the water, though he knew from experience that the current was painfully and dangerously strong. He reached into an area of spattering drops instead, and let them decorate his hand. 

"Yes." 

For a minute, there was silence. 

"Charlie Weasley knows about this place?"

Harry bit his lip. "Yeah. I don't think he'll come here over the next week, though." 

"And you -- you know because he brought you here?" 

"Yeah." 

"What did you do here?"

Harry turned to Snape at that, emboldened by irritation that Snape would be so rude as to ask. "What d'ya think?"

Rather than backing down, Snape smiled slyly. "I have only the vaguest of ideas." 

Harry's eyes narrowed in challenge. Charlie had got him over a good deal of his embarrassment about sex, and Snape, he expected, wouldn't be asking if he expected to be answered. 

"Well," he said slowly, "he brought me back here and we had some mead -- well, not mead, exactly, but some Ethiopian thing that Bill had sent him -- and not too much -- just a glass each. Then he showed me how to conjure lights to hang in front of the water and make it sparkle...." Harry conjured a blue light, but then cancelled it as it was rising into position. "Probably not a good idea. I bet they show from the other side. 

"Then he lay in front of me, and pressed back, and twisted to kiss me, and told me he wanted me to fuck his arse--"

Snape let out a sort of squawk, and Harry looked at him, amused and trying to ignore that he was equally embarrassed. "This was the first place I ever did that. He was so much more experienced than me that the other way just seemed to make more sense."

"Potter..."

"Sorry." Harry, who had looked away, glanced back. "But don't ask if you don't want to know." 

After that, there was silence again, until Harry wanted to remove the muting charm from the roaring fall of water, so they could claim that they weren't talking because it wasn't possible. "I don't know what to do, now that I don't need to rub your back," he said. 

It sounded stupid as soon as he had said it, and he tensed when Snape cleared his throat. 

"You could still." 

Harry moved over. Hesitantly, he stroked his hands down the sides of Snape's neck, but Snape, rather than undoing his robes and letting them fall to his waist, half-turned in his place and caught at the back of Harry's neck to pull him into a hard, messy kiss. 

He drew back almost immediately, tossing his head in a gesture Harry had never seen from him before. 

"Hate me if you want. I had to." 

There was no point, Harry knew, in telling him it was okay. Instead, he returned the gesture, dragging Snape forward and claiming his mouth with sudden desperation. When Snape began to twist away, rather than towards him, he stopped, horrified at what he had done. 

"Sorry. I thought--"

"Would you? Please?"

"Would I what?"

"Fuck me like that." Snape tensed. "Damn. Never mind, I--"

"Hush. _Yes."_

Snape was still. 

"I'd thought you were trying to get away. Kiss me a little more?"

He tried to put some art into it, but Snape was too desperate, and to be honest, he was too desperate. The robes came off, and there was damn little under them, and his jeans came off before his shirt, which he almost left on, and he was rutting against Snape's crack rather than carefully preparing him. 

"Fuck! I'm usually-- I'm not--" 

His mouth obviously being useless for words, he bit at one of those protruding shoulder blades. In his frustration he clamped down harder than he had intended, but when Snape yelled it was "Yes!" so that was all good. Calmed by the flesh in his mouth, he finally conjured lube and pushed a couple of fingers inside. While he worked them in and out, he returned to suckling on the spot he had bit, drawing blood up into the skin. 

He was working on three and wondering how long it had been for Snape and if he had to do more, when his decision was made by a "Damn it, Potter, do you know how to stick it in or not?" 

With a growl, he was in with a single thrust, and satisfied to hear Snape squeak -- just momentarily, before catching his reaction. 

"Like that?" he asked. 

"Yes," Snape said precisely. "Exactly like that." 

Harry was moving already, unable to wait. He couldn't help thinking that he was doing everything wrong, and his former professor was going to think him an awkward, inexperienced child, but Snape was moving just as desperately, and when Harry leaned forward, Snape twisted toward the closest point of his arm and took it in his teeth and sucked. At a muffled whine that vibrated against the flesh, Harry realized that he was gagging himself with the bite. With a growl, he shoved forward and came hard, letting his own shout echo against the rock. 

"Damn it, Potter, can't you even--"

Harry pulled out and shoved him over -- easy enough with Snape so weakened -- and took Snape's cock in his mouth, even as he pushed his fingers -- all of them -- back into Snape's loosened hole. In seconds, Snape was coming as well, bitter pulses that filled Harry's mouth as quickly as he could swallow. 

It was brilliant. 

  


The episode did not make things any less awkward. They talked less afterwards. Harry couldn't figure out why he'd done it, and was embarrassed that he'd enjoyed it so much. They went to sleep apart. 

In the morning, however, he woke to Snape staring at him hungrily, and there seemed nothing for it but to pull him down and touch him everywhere, and the sex was different from the night before, but just as good. 

  


It was certainly late enough on the next day when Harry returned to Charlie, and Charlie, full of stories about the Longhorn hatchlings, didn't press for details on his trip. For almost an hour, Harry thought he had entirely got away with his deception. 

When Charlie suggested a shower -- both of them were filthy, although for different reasons -- Harry didn't worry about it. He had healed every bite and bruise that Severus had left on him. Indeed, that wasn't the problem. It was when Charlie dipped his head from the warm spray and kissed Harry tenderly, and Harry, with a surge of desire, returned the kiss. Charlie pulled back. 

For a moment, he looked startled, but then he grinned easily at Harry. "Had some fun on your trip?" 

"Pardon?" 

"Harry, really, love! I can tell you've been kissing someone else."

"How?"

"You have _never_ done that with your tongue before." Laughing, Charlie shook his head, clearing the water from his face. "Now, give! Was he any good? She?"

"Um, he," Harry admitted. 

"And?"

"Look, I ... I really don't want to talk about it." 

Charlie's brow creased. "Was it one of my brothers?" 

"No!" Harry yelped. He sighed. "No, just ... just this man. I can't tell you who, but ... but it was probably a bad idea."

"Really?" Charlie pulled Harry into a comfortable embrace. The water fell over Harry's left side and Charlie's right. "Why do you think so?"

"It's just-- I don't even know why I _did_ it. He's not good looking like you are -- just intense, really. It was hardly even good sex, we were both so uncomfortable. Or, well, it _was_ good, but I couldn't say why." 

Charlie considered that. "I find a lot of people attractive." 

"I know that," Harry snapped. 

"No, listen. A lot of different people, okay? I mean, that I like the way you're compact and wiry and high energy doesn't mean I don't like solid, steady men as well. If you're attracted to this man, he must look good to you in some way." 

"No." 

"Well, maybe you should let him pass by, then. People deserve some appreciation from their lovers." 

To Harry's surprise, Charlie's tone was chiding. 

"Sorry. I didn't mean--" 

"Yeah, I know. But people can be fragile. You can't do someone and think about them like that."

"He's--" Harry bit back a "not." Snape was fragile, really, in the ways that Charlie meant. Charlie was looking at him expectantly. "Brittle," Harry finished. 

"Well, you'll need to relax him, then."

"Nah. It won't happen again." 

Charlie sighed. "All right. Want me to get your back?"

  


Harry had made up his mind to stay the next day at the residences. He read for an hour, and then got up a pickup game of Snitchless Quidditch with several off-duty handlers. (The preserve had a hard time with Snitches -- the smaller dragons tended to eat them and get indigestion.) Charlie wasn't back when he was scheduled to be, though, and the later he became, the more Harry thought that he could have gone to see Snape, but it was too late now. When Charlie finally returned, Harry had to work not to snap at him. 

The next day, Charlie took off on his broom after breakfast, and Harry decided that he would go. It might not make any sense that he wanted to have Snape again, but he did, and where the man was leaving at the end of the week, it couldn't get too awkward. He flew off on his own before Inga could suggest another game. 

He landed beside the waterfall. It was beautiful today, which was bright and sunny, but he was eager to slip into the dim space behind it and duck down below the black rock into the entrance to the cavern. He stepped forward without entirely waiting for his eyes to adjust. 

"Hello, Harry." 

Harry stiffened. That was Charlie's voice, although much harder and flatter than the tones Harry was used to hearing from him. 

"I see you found our poacher. Good of you to tell us." 

That overcame his paralysis. Harry stepped forward hurriedly. Charlie, he could see now, was sitting by the cold fire, and Snape was flat on his back on the sleeping mat, with no sound emerging from his snarling mouth. 

"Well, it isn't like I could let you arrest him!" Harry protested. "He needed it!" 

"Needed."

"He was having convulsions." Harry scowled. "Still will, if you don't let him take his doses for the next few days." Charlie didn't look convinced -- in fact, he had that stubborn look that he got when he was insisting the twins fix something they had broken. "It was from Nagini! He was hurt in the war!"

"Lots of people were hurt in the war, Harry. The dragons still need food and medicine." 

"Snape was important!"

"And other people weren't?" 

"Look, I ...." Harry was less angry, now, but even more desperate to find something. "I owe him a life debt," he said finally.

Snape's mouth shut, and Charlie pulled back, looking as if he'd been whacked on the nose by a kitten. For one horrible moment, Harry thought he would laugh. He'd never quite understood the life debt thing, and might have got it all wrong. 

"Really?"

"At least one." The anger had left Charlie's face, and Harry stood down also, his relief coming out in a shaky breath. "He may have saved Ginny, as well."

At that, Charlie raised his eyebrows. He moved his wand to Snape in a hard flick, and Snape rolled to his side and pushed hard up to sit. In answer to Charlie's enquiring expression, he shrugged. 

"Likely not her life, but I certainly kept her from tortures that the Carrows would have inflicted on her in my absence." His mouth curled in a malevolent smile. "Possibly including the canonical worse fate." 

Charlie hesitated between offense and understanding, and Harry moved forward. 

"Please don't be angry, Charlie."

"I don't like being _lied_ to. I expected better of you." 

"Sorry." Harry swallowed hard. "I don't like doing it, really. I told you as much of the truth as I could." 

Slow surprise moved across Charlie's face. For a moment, Harry couldn't make any sense of it at all, and then he caught the flick of eyes to Snape and then back to him, and realized that Charlie had assumed that he had made up the stories of attraction and sex, and was just now realizing that it had been merely displaced -- that Snape was Harry's other man. 

Harry thought that he must look like he had no standards at all, but Charlie didn't say anything to him, just watched while he grew steadily redder. Finally, Charlie shifted his gaze to Snape. "Well. Was he good?" 

Snape's reply was forced through gritted teeth. "Yes." 

"I heard you were, too. I mean, if he was really being as honest as possible." Charlie sounded entirely cheerful about it. He sat down on one of the flatter rocks. "So show me." 

"What?"

"A few minutes ago you were offering me _anything_ if I'd let you go. So, here's your anything. I want to watch." 

"You cannot be serious." 

Charlie laughed. "No, really, I'll let you go anyway, as long as you don't try it again. Harry has a point, and I can understand; he took your supposed death hard. But it _would_ be hot." 

Snape relaxed at that. "You could participate, as far as I'm concerned, but I would think you'd want to ask your lover. Harry might be more self-conscious." 

"Oh much," Harry volunteered. He felt his hips tilt forward of their own accord. "But Harry thinks that would be _scorchingly_ hot. What do you want me to do, Charlie?" 

"Hm." Charlie's head tilted. For a moment, he rubbed at the back of his neck, thinking. "I'm not certain. Start with a kiss. I want to see how that works."

Determined to not look afraid, Harry strode forward, but once he was face-to-face with Snape, he felt awkward about beginning. Snape seemed to have no such problems. He lunged into the kiss, his fingers threading up through Harry's hair and gripping there. Harry felt his moan tremble though his mouth. Of their own accord, his hands had settled on where to be: flat again Snape's back, pulling him closer. 

Suddenly remembering Charlie, he drew back. Snape, wild-eyed, clenched as if he would pull him back, but then froze. 

"Oh, I see," Charlie said. He stood up and came closer, speaking intimately from behind Harry. "He's desperate, isn't he?"

"I'm not!" Snape retorted indignantly. "It's-- The nerve damage made everything-- It is just the intensity of feeling returning."

Harry nearly rolled his eyes. He didn't think that was all of it, not when the current trembling in Snape's body had nothing to do with damage. 

"Makes sense," Charlie said amiably. "You should try to remember that feeling, then. It's damn sexy." He leaned close to Harry, his breath warming Harry's ear. "Tell him how hot he is, pulling you like that, opening his mouth like that." 

Harry met Snape's eyes, words catching in his throat as he remembered Charlie scolding him. That was what Charlie wanted, right? For him to appreciate his other lover?

Snape sneered in response. "Don't bother, Potter. I'm not delusional." 

"No, he's right," Harry protested, suddenly realizing that Charlie _was_ right. "It _is_ hot. I came back, didn't I?"

Charlie interrupted before they could say too much. "Kiss again." 

Snape was more hesitant, this time, so Harry pushed it, waiting for him to break. He kissed hard, and drew his hands hard down Snape's back, until he was pressed tight against him, feeling the hard line of Snape's cock against his covered groin. 

"Potter...."

"God. Want you so badly. Please?" 

"Wait a moment, there!" Charlie exclaimed. _"I_ pick. You agreed."

"Fine!" Harry retorted. "You pick. Just do it, will you? Can I take his clothes off? Mine?"

Charlie lounged back against the rock wall, ostentatiously adjusting himself. "I think he should get to do it. Snape," he called, "take Harry's clothes off. Fast or slow, however you want. He's fit; you should get a good look at that body he's throwing at you." 

"As you wish," Snape said diffidently. Despite his tone, his expression was hungry, and his hands trembled as he undid the zipper on Harry's jacket and pushed it off of him. After a pause, during which he licked his lips, he slid his hands under Harry's shirt. His arms pushed it up almost incidentally as he felt along Harry's chest. 

"Take one of his nipples in your teeth," Charlie suggested, gripping the front of his dragonhide work trousers. "He likes that. Not too hard, though." 

Snape took the suggestion enthusiastically, first working gently, and then finding the line of too hard. Harry, casting around for something to do with his hands, finally realized that he had not been prohibited from touching. He reached down to stroke up Snape's neck and then pulled up on a handful of his hair. It was thick, and not as oily as he had expected. 

"Yeah," he said. "That's good. You're so good."

He had to let go as Snape finally shoved the shirt up and off of him, and straightened in its wake for another fierce kiss. Charlie was undoing his belt buckle as he watched, and Snape, as if in echo, was scrabbling at Harry's, taking three pulls to unhook it. The jeans gave him less trouble, and the lot was soon falling down to Harry's ankles. He hadn't been wearing pants, and his cock jutted out in a way that might have embarrassed him if he hadn't felt Snape's erection, and couldn't see Charlie working his hand inside his trousers. 

"Step out of that, Harry," Charlie said breathlessly. "Shoes too. Want to see all of you. After that, you can take his robes off." 

Snape's robes were easy to get off, but Harry tried to do it a little more nicely, now, undoing more fastenings than was strictly necessary and running his hands over skin as it was exposed. He hadn't looked at Snape's front, before -- not more than incidentally -- but the man's body hair was black, but sparse, and formed an enticing trail down his front. Harry bit back words, then tried to form them again, and then finally ended up looking helplessly at Charlie. 

"Say what you want to say, Harry." 

Harry wasn't sure how to make a sentence that wasn't stupid. He ran his thumbs down the line of black to the first closed fastener. "This," he said. "Like." 

He slid the robes of Snape's shoulders and then bore them down, ending up with his mouth at the tip of a newly exposed cock. He held his tongue-tip out to it, just touching the slit and tasting salt, while his eyes went to Snape's. 

"Perfect," Snape said, almost as if he were angry, but Harry didn't think he was.

"You two are gorgeous together, you know," Charlie said. His voice was closer than Harry had expected. He was standing near, addressing Snape. "Harry all slight and sleek and pink, and you all angles and cream. Do you want him to suck you? I think he will, the moment you say he can." 

Snape stared down at Harry, and Harry nodded. "Yeah."

That cock-tip lurched forward, bumping his mouth. 

"Of course, yes!" Snape burst out, and Harry pounced, taking the full length in his mouth at one go before thinking to back off and be more careful.

"You're making him crazy, you know," Charlie whispered, above him. "That's good for him. He thinks too much. You do too, I expect." Hands appeared in Harry's peripheral vision, one resting on each of Snape's hips. "Now what about me? Should I fuck one of you? Nicely accessible arses, both of you. Or I could ask you to suck me, and you might say yes. Or you could switch to fucking him, and I could ask him to suck me...."

"That," Snape said tersely. 

"That?" 

"The last."

"Fine with me. Harry?" 

Harry caught Snape's cock in his hand before lifting his mouth. "Hell, yes." 

"Great." Charlie grinned. "Everyone should be happy, right? Has he fucked you before?" 

"Um, no." 

Charlie looked at Snape. "I assume you've fucked someone?"

"Yes." 

"All right, then." Charlie summoned a rock, cast a Cushioning charm on it, stripped off, and sat on it, his swollen cock in hand in front of him. "Come here, Harry -- it'll give both of you a good angle."

It was a good angle, Harry thought, both for his mouth and throat and for the way Snape's hands were exploring his arse. Two things at once was an almost overwhelming level of sensation, but he could still appreciate what long thumbs Snape had, and how exact a control of his hands. He lost the progression of that in Charlie's cock and Charlie's dirty whispers about how hot he looked, and how wet his mouth was, so that the next thing he noticed distinctly was a deeper, fully thrust, and skin up against his back. 

"Perfect," Snape whispered harshly, and from there it was a madness of pleasure. 

  


He was catching his breath -- the three of them were -- lying on sand that someone had cushioned. Snape was stroking his arm hypnotically, and Harry thought he might never say anything. Charlie, of course, wouldn't stay silent for long. In fact, he spoke just as Harry was thinking he would. 

"Feeling better?" 

Harry thought of how embarrassed he had felt enjoying sex with Snape before, and he ran a hand down the man's side. 

"Yeah," he said, just as Snape said, "Yes." 

They looked at each other for a moment, and Charlie chuckled. 

"I'm still not returning to England," Snape volunteered. "I intend to stay dead."

Charlie laughed. "Just as well. He'll end up with my sister -- you'll see." He winked at Harry, who shrugged, but couldn't help smiling. It was an odd time for Charlie to be so sure. 

"I'm sure it will make the papers, when it happens," Snape said dryly, and Harry turned his head to look at him. 

"Will you write? I promise not to tell anyone." 

"It would be wiser not to." 

"But then I'll worry, and you know me. If I worry too much, I'll come looking for you. Write occasionally?"

Snape sighed, but his touch remained relaxed. "Once a year, only. On this date, I will write, and I will tell you where I have been and am no longer." 

"Thanks." Harry smiled and lay back, looking at the drops of light the water splashed along the ceiling. Once a year would be enough. As to whether Charlie as a brother-in-law would be enough ... well, that would take some time to consider. Perhaps it needed more research.

  



End file.
